Gregor Robertson on the next 4 years

11/18/2014 12:33 EST
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Updated
01/17/2015 05:59 EST

CBC

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He faced many vocal critics, a competent and focused opponent and plenty of tense moments throughout the civic election campaign period, but Gregor Robertson prevailed and will serve his third term as Vancouver mayor.

He joined On The Coast's Stephen Quinn on Monday to talk about the next four years.

Listen to the full interview here, and keep reading for some of the highlights.

On his apology at the CBC Radio debate:

"As the campaign rolled along, and I heard quite a bit of feedback—people concerned about not being heard through development decisions, rezonings, through development, through bike lanes, whatever it was—I just felt like our agenda was so ambitious that we hadn't taken the time to listen to people quite enough."

- CITY VOTES 2014 | Robertson apologizes during CBC debate

On the perception he is cozy with developers:

"I get the opposite from the development community at times, that things are not moving fast enough... My focus really is on ensuring that we deal with the growth that we're dealt. Affordability is the big issue and we have enormous growth pressures and we have to focus our energy at city hall into the more affordable end of the spectrum."

On the province's transportation referendum:

"A clear question on 'here's the package' and what do you support for a way of funding it, but that's got to be worked out by the province over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully we get it in December and we have a clear direction with the language, the timing of this referendum, and we can all focus on working hard to make sure it's approved."

On the impact of a decision to tear down the Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts:

"We're waiting for the report back from city staff. They're looking at the overall business case for it. There's a lot of questions earlier in the year around the financial implications of taking it down, and the housing, and the park space that can be created in future there, and the transportation issues I think largely were dealt with by our transportation engineers... We'd like to see a proposal for how cars get in and out through the east side without impacting the neighbourhoods as much."

On his promise to end homelessness in 2015:

"This year has been a massive push to get people into housing and we know there's still people outside. We don't know exactly what that number is but we're doing everything we can right now to get people in. And to look at the next partnership that we have with the province and the federal government on social housing."